Book Study: Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites- Strategy 3: Field Trips

March 15, 2015

Wow!! This book study is going by so fast! Today I read the new post about it and we have already completed strategy 5!

I haven’t posted about strategies 3-5 yet, because, well, I’ve been very busy these past 2 weeks. I hate to use that as an excuse because I know that we are all very busy…. just in different ways. For me, I helped host 2 bridal showers, led a science night at our school, and helped write a grant.

Another reason, is because I just got my book today!!

I know!!

Can you believe it!?!?

It took Barnes and Noble….or UPS……. 2 weeks to get it here! When I saw that it had been delivered today, I made myself a pot of hot tea (I had just seen the newly released Cinderella, and all of those British voices just put me in the hot tea mood!) and sat myself right down on the sofa with a highlighter and the book and read until I got to the end of strategy 5. The way Marcia Tate has it organized, it makes for an easy read! I love it!

Now for Strategy 3: The strategy is all about field trips. I love field trips!! I really do!!

Now do I like…..

the preparations for field trips

the bus ride

The answer would be a big NO!!

but….

when I see the excitement in all of my kinder cubs eyes when we get on that school bus and then when we come back and I hear the students talking all about it, I love it!! It is well worth it!

Here is my graphic organizer about this strategy (I’ve got to figure out how to make this bigger…arrgh!!):

We take 2 field trips a year. I think that is all we are allowed to take. We got to go to the farm that was about 30 minutes away from us. It was very hands on and when we left, the kids had such a greater first hand knowledge of what a farm actually looked like. I mean….really…..some of my kinder cubs had never even seen a tractor before!!

We are very fortunate to have a wonderful live stage theater in our county called The Legacy Theater. All throughout the year they present children’s musicals that are awesome! This year, in the spring, they are performing A Year With Frog and Toad. It is a great field trip to show live theater and learn some etiquette as well. Before we go on this field trip, I plan to make my instruction based around frogs and toads, and we will read A Year With Frog and Toad. That way, they will all have some prior knowledge about what is fact and fantasy concerning real frogs and toads and the characters in the story. What a great way to compare and contrast the musical and the book! Ooooo! I’m beginning to get really excited just thinking about it!

Now on to ways to improve: I definitely will get on more virtual field trips with my kinders. On Friday afternoons, I play a video that relates to a science or social studies topic and they go out to our pod area to redeem their Tiger Tickets they have earned throughout the week for good behavior choices. I’m going to try to show 1 virtual field trip every other week during this time instead. One website where you can find some is Discovery Education. Just now, I googled for virtual field trips and I found a good article that links you up to 10 that are mainly free. It’s called: Ten of the Best Virtual Field Trips I will definitely try a couple of those and see if they fit the learning targets for my kinder cubs before I show them.

Marcia Tate suggested ideas of just walking the class around the school and school grounds and have them find geometric shapes in the real world. I know that there are teachers at our school who do that and the kids have a device with them and they take pictures. Then, using a drawing app, they trace the shapes they see in the pictures using their fingers. I think that is really cool and sooooo 21st century!

We have a garden in the backyard of our school. I plan to take the kids out there and do some planting of some seeds and have them journal about the plants growth process.

One last personal thing before I leave this post today:

My granddaughter is 10 years old and she loves history and science. Take her to a museum and she is in heaven!! She also loves ice cream!! This past November, we went to the Smoky Mountains…oh how I love the Smoky Mountains……and on our way back home, I talked my husband into stopping in Athens TN to visit the Mayfield Dairy Farm. It was a gem of find. This place actually wasn’t a dairy farm, but more like a factory that makes Mayfield milk and ice cream…..which is a popular brand in the south. The tour was very inexpensive and at the end, the price included ice cream! My granddaughter got to see the history of how Mayfield began. Then, we had to put on some funky nets, and we toured the factory of how the plastic containers were made, how the milk is packaged…which by the way….that is where our school milk is produced, and how the ice cream is made and packaged. I think I enjoyed it just as much if not more than she did. Here we are in our cute little hair nets. She kept her hair net as a souvenir. 🙂

If you click on the picture, you will see my review of Mayfield Dairy Farms on Trip Advisor. If you are ever in that area of TN, it is worth the trip for sure.

Be sure and check out the other linkys from the blog: Mrs. Wills Kindergarten. There are some great ideas and graphic organizer freebies throughout concerning field trips!

Happy field tripping!! 🙂

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Hi! I am a kindergarten teacher who is passionate about her job! I am a christian woman who has been married for over 30 years. I have 2 terrific married children with awesome spouses! I also have a 9 year old and 5 month old granddaughter! I am truly blessed beyond measure!!